Research On The System Of Enterprise Programme Management In Construction Industry

Traditionally, the vast majority of practical and theoretical developments on construction project management have been related to single projects considered in isolation. In fact, it has been suggested that up to 90%, by value, of all projects occur in the multi-project context. So, there exist essential defects in research that concentrates on a single project whilst ignoring its interrelations and interactions with other projects. For a long time, most Architecture/Engineering/Construction (A/E/C) firms used effective single-project management techniques as their primary tools. Amongst the problems associated with these organizations is a longstanding dichotomy that exists between project-level and company-level management. Indeed, within project-based A/E/C firms, production processes typically focus on technological outputs at the project level, whereas company-level processes mainly support the administrative aspects of projects. Also, many project-based enterprises of this type place insufficient emphasis on the strategic management of the company. The result is that this dichotomy often leaves few managers responsible for understanding how each project contributes to or impacts enterprise performance. As a result, many of the firms in the A/E/C industry have lost sight of their primary objective: to make decisions that maximize overall organizational success rather than the success of any individual project. Accordingly, it is necessary to develop a more effective management system for A/E/C enterprise.With the rapid development of Project management theory, Programme Management, which integrates project management and strategy management, and is defined as the integration and management of a group of related projects with the intent of achieving benefits that would not be realized if they were managed independently, has been widely implemented in Manufacture, IT and Communications industries, and has achieved great success. Accordingly, research on Programme Management has become a hot point problem in the fields of strategy management and project management recently. However the relevant research and implementation in the construction industry has been notably silent concerning methodology, and considerations for program management, especially in China, are quite deficient. In the background, this dissertation aims to provide an entirely novel management concept, and provide project-based enterprises with a 'roadmap' to high payback areas.Based on the modern management theories, like organization theory, synergy theory and system theory, this dissertation uses three kind of methodologies, that includes theory analyzing, comparative research, and case study, and integrates the recent research outcomes from many fields, like strategy management, project management, integration management, theory of constraints and system dynamic, expounds the nature of application for programme management in construction industry, and brings forward implement methods and performance evaluation system.Firstly, this dissertation analyses the limitation of traditional construction project management, and the origins and development of programme management, then, discuses the concept of programme management in detail and gives a new definition for Programme Management based on synergy theory. This definition reveals the inside reasons of managing projects by group. Chapter 2 provides an overview of existing ontological theories relevant to this research; thereby partly encompassing the point of departure for the research effort, and these theories provides the basic principle for this research development. Specifically, four key topics are covered: the integration of strategy management and project management, synergy theory and construction project integration management, theory of constrains and critical chain project management, and system dynamic in construction industry. However, this research views these theories, techniques, and practices as 'building blocks' towards a better approach of what might be done.The main outcome of this research was the Programme Management Theoretical Framework setting for construction industry as a research product and methodology. According to the features of construction industry and construction project, Chapter 3 analysis of the applicability of programme theory in construction industry, and identifies different typology for Construction Engineering Programme and Enterprise Programme, and creates a programme management model applicable for A/E/C enterprise. Based on the Programme Management Theoretical Framework, Chapter 4 to Chapter 7 puts forward methods and tools that can be used during the programme management process, in particular, four aspects be emphasized, these are programme organization, project selection, schedule planning and resource allocation in multi-project environment, and programme management performance evaluation. (1) The creation of programme management organization includes the framework designing and operation systems building. This research mainly discusses the setting and operating of Programme Management Office, and the communication and collaboration of multi-project. (2) Project selection is important because of the scare of resource, Managers should selecte the most valuable projects from the potentials. By using the method of constrained fuzzy AHP, the project priority can be decided, and this provides decision-making for programme manager. (3) Resource share and interaction of multi-project are core problems faced by programme management. This research builds system dynamic models for project share and single project, and integrates the critical chain project management that based theory of constrains, creates and integration model for multi-project planning and resource allocation. (4) The validity of every kind management methods should be appraised by the performance realized. This research based on the Balanced score card, which divided the organization strategy into five different aspects, that includes financial, customer, project/inter process, organization learning and community responsibility, and designs a performance evaluation system for programme management based on Balanced Scorecard. At last, a case study provided evidence that confirm the effective results of programme management.Finally, Chapter 8 puts forward the research contribution in theoretical and practical, and points out the direction of further research.